What Was It About 'Amos 'n' Andy'?

By Mel Watkins;

Published: July 7, 1991

THE ADVENTURES OF AMOS 'N' ANDY A Social History of an American Phenomenon. By Melvin Patrick Ely. Illustrated. 322 pages. New York: The Free Press. $22.95.

During the late 1920's and early 30's, the most popular radio program in the United States was "Amos 'n' Andy"; many historians contend that it was the most popular show ever broadcast. This comic serial -- in which the white actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll portrayed two black men -- not only dominated this country's listening habits for 15 minutes, five days a week, but also significantly influenced its daily routines. Al Smith, for example, scheduled radio spots for his 1928 Presidential campaign so that they did not compete with the program, and George Bernard Shaw reflected its impact when he commented, "There are three things which I shall never forget about America -- the Rocky Mountains, Niagara Falls, and 'Amos 'n' Andy.' "

The program's popularity and the dispute that ultimately forced its withdrawal from network broadcasting are the focus of Melvin Patrick Ely's "Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy." Mr. Ely, who teaches history at Yale University, tracks the program from its debut as "Sam 'n' Henry" in 1926, through its rise to national prominence during the early days of radio, and follows its continued success during the Depression and World War II, when the humor broadened and Kingfish became the central character. He also describes its controversial television debut with black performers in 1951 and its quick demise after black protests spurred a heated dispute that drove off many prospective sponsors.

But Mr. Ely moves beyond a chronicle of the rise and fall of a black sitcom. Foremost this is a social history; the author uses "Amos 'n' Andy" to examine "American racial attitudes in the first half of the twentieth century." And one of the initial questions he asks is why, "if Gosden and Correll's work was nothing more than a heap of racist cliches," the show attained such "unique popularity and influence among both black and white" audiences.

Racial cliches may partially explain white America's attraction to the program, but that explanation is incomplete. During the 20's and 30's, blackface comedy acts -- most offering far more demeaning caricatures of black life -- were common. But the Mack and Morans, Buck and Wheats, and Anaesthetic and Cerebelums who crowded the airwaves never seriously challenged "Amos 'n' Andy." At least initially, as Mr. Ely writes, although the "show was a comedy, its essential appeal seemed to lie somewhere other than in its humor."

The stereotypical portrayals of Amos Jones and Andy H. Brown were balanced by other attributes. Amos was unquestionably dense and naive, but he was also honest, dedicated and hardworking. And Andy, although lazy, conniving and pretentious as minstrelsy's venal Jim Dandy, was also a good-natured fellow. Moreover, they were depicted in realistic situations with which both whites and blacks could identify. Migration from rural to urban areas was common throughout the nation at the time. The struggle to survive the Depression was an experience shared by nearly all Americans. And although Amos and Andy spoke in a dialect spiced with malaprop (" 'Splain dat to me," "Ain't dat sumpthin'," "I'se regusted"), Gosden and Correll avoided humor based entirely on race. Mr. Ely says they depicted "Afro-American life while minimizing references to race and categorically ruling out scenes that even implied racial unpleasantness." Amos and Andy were called "dumbbells" and "rubes," for instance, but pointed racial slurs were avoided.

Unlike most blackface characters, those in "Amos 'n' Andy" reflected many values common to lower middle-class Americans. White audiences could empathize with the universal aspects of the experiences of the black people depicted on the program -- financial problems, personal relationships, even reactions to contemporary events -- while laughing at their supposed ethnic traits. As Mr. Ely points out, Gosden and Correll walked a tightrope, plying white audiences with traditional racial stereotypes but cleverly muting their harsher overtones.

As the show evolved, however, its central comic characters became George Stevens, the Kingfish of the Mystic Knights of the Sea lodge; Lightnin', the shiftless handyman; Algonquin J. Calhoun, a bogus lawyer, and Sapphire, Kingfish's wife. As unmitigated minstrel caricatures they were less humanized than Amos or Andy, and were the principal targets of black complaints about negative images.

Despite protests over the years, many African-Americans were also avid fans of the show. Mr. Ely cites surveys and provides samplings of personal testaments and correspondence illustrating black support. As he shows, black reaction to "Amos 'n' Andy" was most accurately characterized by its disparity and vacillation. The Pittsburgh Courier, for example, began a campaign to remove the show from the air in 1931. But Roy Wilkins (then a journalist and editor) debunked the effort, maintaining that "Amos 'n' Andy" had "all the pathos, humor, vanity, glory, problems and solutions that beset ordinary mortals and therein lies its universal appeal." By 1951, when "Amos 'n' Andy" was on television, Wilkins had changed his mind and led a campaign by the N.A.A.C.P. to ban the program.

Mr. Ely also touches on the crucial issue of black concern over whites' reaction to the program. "The 'Amos 'n' Andy' controversy," he writes, stirred debate about "which aspects of black life and culture should Afro-Americans display in public." It is a point the author might have further explored, since it refers to one of the most enigmatic social aspects of the phenomenon: why did black determination to ban the show coalesce only after African-American performers took over the parts on television? That cast, after all, represented the most talented group of black comic performers ever assembled for a continuing program on radio or television and presented comedy that, in private, the majority of blacks found amusing. Since Gosden and Correll's radio program continued for seven years after the television show was shunted to syndication in 1953, it seems that the black community was more disturbed by the visual disclosure of genuine African-American stage humor to a nationwide audience than by Gosden and Correll's racial ventriloquism.

Mr. Ely, however, is more assiduous in exploring the effect the program had on white America. He acknowledges how the show affected him as an adolescent and writes that he learned "not merely that Afro-Americans could be funny, but that being funny was one of their chief functions in life." Still, he writes that Gosden and Correll -- by "humanizing" the minstrel caricature of the Negro, occasionally countering the typical darky stereotypes of ignorance, venality and laziness -- contributed to a "low-level ferment in the racial thinking of many whites." That ferment, he suggests, made non blacks more receptive to the civil rights movement of the 1960's.

"The Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy" does not pretend to address all the social repercussions of humorous depictions of African-Americans in the mass media, but it does provide an informative, well-researched analysis of the history of an important episode in that depiction. Finally, just as Gosden and Correll walked a tightrope in their presentation of stereotypes on the show, so does Mr. Ely in his assessment of the program's worth. Perhaps his discretion is justifiable, since -- as witnessed by the recent television special on black comedy, "A Laugh, a Tear" -- a debate continues over the value or possible pejorative influence of "Amos 'n' Andy" and other humorous portrayals of blacks. Still, his cautiously enthusiastic estimate of the long-term effects of the program echoes a conclusion reached 60 years ago by Constance Rourke in "American Humor: A Study of the National Character." "Humor has been a fashioning instrument in America," she wrote, "creating fresh bonds, a new unity, the semblance of a society and the rounded completion of an American type."